


Learning to Fear

by zombiesbecrazy



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics)
Genre: Fear gas, Gen, fear toxin, robin training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 08:37:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11847930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombiesbecrazy/pseuds/zombiesbecrazy
Summary: Dick hates what he has to do next in regards to Damian's training as Robin, but he's going to try and make it a little less terrible if he can.





	Learning to Fear

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written any fanfiction in years and then this little thought got in my head.

“Do you have any suggestions? Sage words of wisdom to dole out? Rousing pep talk?” Dick looked to Alfred, hoping that he had some perfect solution to his problem like he had so many times since Dick had taken over the role of Batman since Bruce had died.  They had been sitting in the bunker, talking about what they should do about Damian and the next phase of his training.  Things had started a little rough with him as the Robin to Dick’s Batman, but it was beginning to look up.  With a little more trust and structure there were  a lot less murderous tendencies coming from the young former assassin, but Dick was having trouble trying to work out how he had to approach the next task in front of him; what Bruce would have done next when training his Robins.

Alfred gave Dick a small half smile and shook his head.  “Only the cliché, I’m afraid.  Follow your heart and let your conscious be your guide and so on.  Do what you think best, Master Dick.  Your moral compass always did have a very strong pull towards true north.”

Dick looked back towards the desk, eyeing the glass vial for what must have been a least the fortieth time in the past half hour.  He had been looking for some sort of firm direction from Alfred, but he wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t got it.  Following his own heart was probably the right call, he thought, however when he didn’t quite understand what his heart was trying to tell him, that didn’t do him a whole lot of good.

“What would Br…” he stopped himself mid thought, because he knew what Bruce would have done. What Bruce _did_ do in this exact scenario when Dick had been Robin.  And Jason.  And Tim.  Knowing what Bruce had done didn’t make Dick feel any better about it because it had been a very sore spot of contention between them and something that, if Dick really thought about it, he don’t think he ever quite forgave Bruce for.  “Did he ever talk to you about it? What he did to us?” 

Alfred took a sip of his tea and appeared to be staring into his cup, lost in his thoughts.  “He did.  Not before you, but in the aftermath.  And then again with the others. We had rather large arguments about if I’m to be perfectly honest. I was furious with his methods, though I did understand how he had arrived at them.” He looked up and caught Dick’s gaze. “I never won on this issue, but I would like to hope that he took my words into counsel.  He did make changes each time. And I would like to think that after Tim he may have consideration abandoned it entirely.”

“You think he was wrong.”

“I do, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I think I was completely right. I think that his mind was in the right place, thinking about the big picture and the mission and how to prepare and teach you, but that may have distracted him from the little things.”

“Little things like our well being?”  Alfred frowned at Dick’s remark, but nodded slightly.  “Sometimes I just wish I could talk to him, you know?  We never talked about this part, about how hard some of his choices were.  I mean, I knew being Batman was hard, but I don’t think I realized it was _hard_.” Dick chuckled at himself, because this was something that he had been thinking about ever since making the switch from Nightwing to Batman; the level of responsibility had gone up even higher than he had imagined it would. “Having a Robin is hard.”

“You may want to remember that being a Robin is also hard. Perhaps you should think about what you would have preferred then, knowing what you know now.”

“What I would have liked?” Dick murmured to himself as Alfred rose from his chair, collected their dishes and turned back towards the elevator. Just before he started the climb up towards the penthouse, he looked back. “Just so you know, I’ll stand beside your decision regardless, as I stood by his however misguided I thought it was.  I know you aren’t taking the matter lightly so that is all I can ask.  I just hope that you may be able to find an alternative solution.”

Bruce had been a planner.  There had been a reason and a purpose for every move and part of the reason that Batman was so successful was that Bruce had the uncanny ability to think out so many scenarios and try to have several plans to thwart each potential obstacle.  Dick had once made the joke that if Bruce hadn’t become Batman, he would have been some sort of doomsday apocalypse theorist with a bomb shelter full of pork and beans and bug-out bags would be hidden throughout the house. Bruce’s deadpan response was that his bomb shelter also had canned fruit, because balanced nutrition was important to survival.  This type of thinking was great for the protector of Gotham; he had been able to see the cracks and prepare for most events to the best of his abilities, and because of this he had been able to train his Robins the same way, to make sure that they could be ready for anything.  He had trained them to the best of their abilities, making them strong, fast, clever, and adaptable and every other quality that was part of being a Robin, but the physical was only part of it.  Training the body was nothing if the mental training didn’t match, if not exceed it, as psychological warfare was an everyday occurrence in Gotham.

Which is why Batman had intentionally dosed each Robin with Crane’s fear toxin as part of their training.

The more Dick thought about it, the more irritated he got at Bruce and his past self.  Why hadn’t they talked about this as adults?  As equals?  In a mature and rational fashion?  That would have definitely helped him now instead of the memory he had of himself yelling at Bruce about Tim’s reaction and Bruce steadfastly ignoring him.  Dick would have even preferred fighting it out over the silence he had gotten.

As an adult, Dick could see where Batman was coming from and why he thought it was necessary because knowing about fear toxin and its effects were one thing, but experiencing it was something else entirely.  Strategically, it only made sense to practice it.  But as a child, as Robin, he had felt hurt and betrayed that Batman would do that to him; that he would invade his mind like that, _poison_ him like that without warning.  Once the fear toxin had worn off, it wasn’t the things that he had seen that had haunted him the most, it was that he felt like he couldn’t trust Batman to help him. He had intentionally hurt him.

And now that he was in Batman’s boots, Dick could try to make things… not right, but possibly better. Or at least slightly less terrible.

***

Dick wasn’t sure how long he had been sitting at the desk in the bunker, lost in his own thoughts, when he heard Damian approach him from behind.  Damian moved around the table and sat down in the chair across from him, and eyed the vial on the desk.

“What is that, Grayson?”

Dick reached across the table and picked up the container and looked at the red mixture intently.  “It’s the base formula for Scarecrow’s fear toxin.  He modifies it from time to time and it changes the effect or strength a bit, but it always stems on this.” He put it back on the table between them and tried to give Damian a small smile, but he was pretty sure that it looked more like a grimace.  “If anything, he likes to go back to this original version a lot.  He’s a little nostalgically romantic as far as evil scientists go.”

“I’m aware of the toxin. I read about him from those tedious files you insisted that I memorize. Has he threatened an attack?” Damian’s eyes flicked to the other side of the room, towards the change room, indicating that he was more than ready to suit up and pursue Scarecrow as soon as Dick gave the word.  The fact that he didn’t just get up and go reminded Dick that Damian now respected his decisions at least enough to wait for plan instead of running off on his own.

“No, he’s locked up in Arkham right now.”

“-tt-“ Damian rolled his eyes at Dick and fidgeted in his chair in a way that made him think that Damian wanted to kick him under the table but knew his legs wouldn’t reach. “Then why are we wasting time looking at his toxin?”

“Because we need to have a conversation about it.  For the time when he inevitably gets out of Arkham. They always get out.  This city really is the worst sometimes.”  Dick rested his hands on the desk between them and made sure Damian was looking at him in the eye.  “I wanted to talk to you like a partner.  I want your feedback about a decision that I need to make and I want to give you choices that your father didn’t give the rest us. From my side of the table now, I think that Bruce’s idea was right, but his execution was wrong.  You may be a child, but that doesn’t mean that you aren’t entitled to an opinion.” Dick hoped the tone in his voice was conveying how important he thought this was, but it felt shaky to him. “The rest of us didn’t get this chance, but I know we all wish we had.”

“Are you trying to say…”

Dick nodded glumly, “You need to be exposed to it. For practice. By me. So that you know what it feels like so if it happens in the field, you can recognize it and you’ll know how to react.  Or at worst I’ll have some idea on how you’ll react.” Damian’s mouth opened but Dick cut him off, “I know that you have read about it.  I know that you think that your background in the League has made you ready for anything and that you have experience and tolerance with some different poisons, but this one is different and the effect that it can have varies greatly from person to person. Nothing can prepare you for this junk except the real thing.”

Leaping to his feet, Damian clenched his hands at his sides.  “You expect me to just let you poison me? Try it and I’ll take your head off.” Dick could see that his eyes were darting to where he had left his sword across the room.

His own voice sounded angrier than Dick expected when he next spoke, taking a hard edge. “You keep telling me how adult you are.  How smart.  How mature.  Prove it.  What I expect is for you to have a rational conversation with me about it so that we can make the best decision.  For both of us.” He took a few moments to collect his thoughts and noticed that Damian hadn’t moved and what looking at him curiously.  With a little effort to calm himself he continued, “Batman did it to us.  Without warning. It sucked.” Dick caught Damian’s eyes, trying to convey he’s feelings as genuine, “I don’t want that for you. I’d rather not have to do it at all, but I’m not really seeing another option.  I’m hoping there is some way that we can make it suck less.  We’re a team, Damian.  Please sit back down.”

Damian stared at Dick for a solid minute, unmoving, trying to decide what his next move would be.  Dick could understand his reluctance to have this conversation.  He was wondering if his gut had been wrong with this approach when he saw Damian slowly sit back down in his chair and look down in his hands in his lap, struggling with how to express his thoughts. Finally, he said quietly, “What was it like?”

“The toxin itself or the ‘training exercise’ as Batman called it?”

“Both.” Damian shrugged a little. “Either.”

“As you know from reading, the toxin makes you hallucinate and pulls those scenarios from your deepest fears or it can warp good memories into something terrifying.  It turns an emotional response into a highly physical one. There are three general reactions that a person can have from it – flight, fight or freeze.”

“I assume that the circus brat opts for flight, yes? Literal flight and running away?”

“Nope.  I freeze.” Dick almost laughed as Damian’s mouth drops opened a little in surprise because even Dick thought the reality was absurd. “Don’t worry, it still surprises me too.  It comes with the warping of the fearscape in my mind.  It makes me afraid to fall.  Or land, I guess the real issue is.  Extreme vertigo with a side of seeing everyone I care about being tortured, usually.”

“Not dead?”

“I think my brain decides that torture is worse than death. At least death means they aren’t in pain anymore. If they are dead, I’m the only suffering but if they are in pain we both feel it, maybe? It can change though.  Lots of variables.  With practice I’ve been able to move and react because I can tell the difference between the toxin and real life.  Being frozen and scared of moving is at least a hint that it isn’t real, which helps. Still scared as hell that I’ll fall though. Every time.” Dick gave Damian a small smile, “If you’re ever out with me and I freeze like that, touch my arm and tell me to move.  It’s a small thing, but usually enough to snap me back into action. Make sure you touch me though; it’ll ground me.  I might not listen to just the words.” He thought it was a little sad that had been exposed to the fear toxin enough times to know the little ins and outs of his reaction perfectly.

Damian nodded and Dick could tell that he was tucking that information away for future use and not just placating him and he was glad he was being taken seriously.  “What did my father see?”

“Himself.  Failing.  Everything around him going up in both metaphorical and literal flames.” Dick wished that he could give Damian something more concrete to tell him about his father’s experiences but Bruce had always very vague in the details about it. Most of what he knew came from what Bruce had said or done while under the influence. “He told me that the scenarios always changed depending on what was currently happening in his life which made it extremely difficult to differentiate reality from the toxin.  Said he had to do it based on how the toxin made him feel.  In reality he was able to push the fear aside until it was safe and process later, but with the toxin he couldn’t shake the feeling.  Said the severity of the fear gave him some certainty that it couldn’t be real.” He felt Damian looking at him, “He was a fighter, in case you were wondering.”  Dick rubbed his left eye, remembering a particular run in when Bruce had thought he was the Joker and punched him hard enough to break his cheekbone, not that long after Jason had been murdered. 

“I had assumed.” Damian leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, sorting his thoughts.  “I can see why he would want this simulated in training.  We practice with all sorts of weapons that our opponents use, so it only makes sense.  I don’t see how this is any different. Why do you disagree?”

“It just never worked out right in practice.  With me it backfired on him badly because he tried it in out in the field.  He had planted some in an abandoned warehouse in the Narrows and had me ‘accidentally’ find it and inhale it while he watched from a distance except since his only experience had been with himself getting extremely violent, he wasn’t prepared for my catatonic reaction. He especially wasn’t prepared when some of Penguin’s henchmen attacked me because they had followed me in thinking I was alone.  I got clobbered before he figured out that it was my reaction to the gas and was able to pull them off me.  It hadn’t even occurred to him that I wouldn’t fight back with the toxin in my system. When I woke up in the cave, it was one of the most worried I ever saw him. He told me what he had done and apologized over and over.  It wasn’t the bruises that hurt me, or the lingering sense of terror because the antidote takes time, but it was the fact that he was the one who had done this to me.  I didn’t talk to him for a week.  Which for someone as chatty as me is quite the feat.”  Dick sighed sadly. “If I’m honest, the little kid in me is still mad about it.  I was younger than you are and not emotionally equipped to deal with it.  Bruce and Alfred were my entire world, and then one of them hurt me.  On purpose.” It was the first time that Bruce had let him down and Dick hadn’t known how to move on. He could remember Alfred trying to console him, but despite his best efforts, he couldn’t rationalize what Bruce had done. Even after they had started talking again, it had taken Dick a long time before he could fully trust being in a warehouse with Batman again; unfortunately, there seem to be an above average number of warehouses in Gotham.

A minute of silence passed between them before he continued, “I thought he had learned his lesson, but years later he did it again with Jason. He did make some changes to his plan based on what had happened with me and Jason was older but it still went south fast.  It happened in the cave, but something about the sounds in the ceilings of the cave drove Jason crazy.  He ended up dislocating his shoulder and breaking a few ribs trying to climb the walls to attack the noise.”

“Noise?”

Dick shrugged.  “Jason was furious.  Bruce had told him afterwards that he had done the same to me so he called me, saying that he wanted to join the Ex Robins Club over it.  He couldn’t explain the noise thing in a way that made a lot of sense to me, but like I said, it can affect everyone differently.  Anyways, I talked him down a bit and he went back to work, but things weren’t ever the same between them. I’ve always wondered if some of the problems between then still stem from it.  Not all of Jason’s issues with Batman are Joker related.” Jason and Dick had a mutual, if not wary, understanding right now. Dick was curious if the toxin affected him differently since his resurrection, but they weren’t at the point that he could ask yet.  “He was fight too, by the way, but it’s hard to fight invisible sound coming from an invisible source.”

“Not that long after, Tim.  Once again, Bruce did it a bit differently.  He took everything out of the gym, and created what was essentially a safe space, and it seemed to work out alright on the outset.  Tim was shaken up afterwards, but by all accounts it was a pretty uneventful night. He had tried to run from some shadows, but he had been essentially safe in the gym and no injuries. The real problem didn’t show itself until a few weeks later when Tim had an actual run in with Scarecrow and got hit.” Dick shook his head minutely, not sure how Tim would feel about him sharing this story with Damian, but he thought it was important, so he continued. “And in that time his reaction had changed dramatically. His new hallucinations were all of Batman. Batman was attacking from all angles, lurking in the shadows, taunting him from the rafters.  He was everywhere. The real Batman couldn’t do anything about it because Tim just bolted, doing anything to get away from all of the Batman’s he could see in his mind, knowing that he couldn’t fight Batman, let alone multiple Batman’s and win. Flight doesn’t make someone weak; self-perseverance can be the difference between life and death. Bruce had to call me in to bring him in safely and look after him until the effects wore off because he couldn’t get anywhere close.  But there it was, actual proof that his test had broken the trust that Tim had in him.  He went from being a mentor and partner to being the actual manifestation of fear in Tim’s mind. That reaction went away, but it shook both Tim and Bruce a lot.”

“Having Batman testing us is part of being Robin.  All the training. The Gauntlet. It was well within reasonable boundaries. But this… we all agreed that the toxin itself wasn’t the problem.  I don’t want any of that to happen to you because I need you to keep trusting me if this is going to work out between us. I think we both agree that we need to do this, right? For practice? Not only do you need to know what it’s like, I need to know how you react so that we can keep each other safe.” Damian nodded slowly in agreement. “I’m assuming that you prefer that I came to you about it first?”

Nodding slowly, Damian said, “I appreciate the concern, Grayson.”

“I wanted you to have a say.  You and I have come a long way but I was afraid that if I followed Bruce’s lead it would shatter what we’ve built.”

“You were concerned that I’d kill you in your sleep afterwards.”

“It did cross my mind.”

“I don’t kill anymore.”

“I thought you might make an exception.”

“Maybe I would have,” Damian frowned at himself a little bit. “Probably not though.  We’re past that.  You’ve proven that you a more than adequate teacher.  I like that you came to me with this.  It took character.”

“Any thoughts on how you would like to approach it?”

Damian was silent for a few moments, considering his options. “I like the idea of the gym that Father did with Drake. Controlling the exercise makes logistical sense. But maybe can I have a weapon?” His eyes darted once again back across to where he left his blade. “I know whatever happens, I would feel better with my sword at my side.  Being defenseless to whatever happens would be… unsettling.” He looked at Dick hesitantly, “Unless you think I might injure myself.  Or you.”

“I think we can work with that, though maybe we’ll pick one of your slightly less lethal blades, if that’s alright.” Of course he would like a sword to feel safe - the kid slept with one beside him.  Being without it would probably make the entire situation a thousand times worse.  “You want me in the room?  You’d rather not be alone?”

Damian raised an eyebrow, and Dick had a flashback of Bruce eyeing him in a very similar way and had to admit it was a little eerie to see the look coming out of a preteen.  “I didn’t think that was negotiable.”

“Everything in this conversation is negotiable, Damian.  That’s the whole point.”

“I want you there, Grayson.”

“Thank you.  That means a lot.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.  I just don’t think you are remotely frightening.  You are likely to have little effect on the scenario,” said Damian with a scowl on his face. A few more seconds passed and Dick could see him biting his lower lip slightly.  Dick had almost given up on him continuing the conversation further until Damian quietly spoke again.  “Does it help to think about what might happen? To prepare?”

“It could, but there is a chance that you would be way off base and then it wouldn’t have helped at all.  I’m pretty sure that Jason would have never guessed the noise in the cave if you had given him a hundred tries. It was probably something related from when he was a kid, but you never know.” Dick stopped to consider what he thought Damian would possibly see. The kid was tough and hard to rattle, but the likely choice was obvious.  “You think you’ll see Talia.”

Damian crossed his arms and gave Dick a challenging glare. “I care for my Mother deeply.”

_Bullseye_.  “I know.  Just because you love her doesn’t mean that she’s can’t still scare you. If anything, that might make her even scarier.” Damian continued to glare at him, but said nothing.  Dick ran his hand through his hair, unsure of what to do next.  He was mentally exhausted and he was sure the Damian probably felt similar the longer he thought about what they were going to do. They had gotten as far as Damian was probably going to let them go tonight and pushing him wasn’t going to help. “I think this is a good place to stop for now.  We can talk about it more tomorrow.  Make a more solid plan?” Damian nodded his head almost imperceptibly.  “Want to head back up?”

“Alright.”

The two of them stood and walked towards the elevator, with Damian moving a little slower and a little closer to Dick than he normally did, lost in his thoughts once again.  He was slightly startled when Dick put his hand on his shoulder, but then relaxed slightly into the motion as he squeezed, and Dick smiled at the top of Damian head.

“Thank you, Richard.”


End file.
